Reviews/The Bionic Woman - Fembots in Las Vegas
SparkyX's review
- Fembots In Las Vegas: An In depth look.
There's two ways fans that are first time viewers of season 3 can go into watching this. One way is to view it on it's own merits. It has some good moments and the usual good character interactions but with some slightly annoying plot holes. However, if one were never to have seen the Kill Oscar trilogy, they could most likely rate this episode a winner.
I however, went into viewing this episode viewing it as the sequel to one of my all time favorite episodes. Sometime sequels turns out to be superior than it's predecessor or sometimes a sequel can be not as good but still enjoyable to watch
Fembots In Las Vegas fails for me on all levels. As a sequel, not only does it not gel well story wise with it's predecessor when viewing it back to back with Kill Oscar, it's an over all disappointing inferior sequel.
The story is set one year later after the events of Kill Oscar. Doctor Franklin recently dies in the federal pen and then a new line of fembots (and one leftover duplicate of Callahan from the previous crisis) emerging under the control of Carl Franklin, the vengeful son of the deranged and recently deceased Dr. Franklin, in a scheme to steal America's first directed energy ray weapon.
It's a big surprise to me that this sequel was written by Arthur Rowe, the same writer who wrote the excellent Kill Oscar trilogy and it's just as baffling that this so called professional writer doesn't seem to know what was previously established in it's predecessor.therefore contradicting his own previous work by establishing new information that doesn't gel with things the viewers learned from the previous Kill Oscar trilogy.
One of the most unforgivable aspects of Fembots In Las Vegas was not just the fact that Steve Austin was not included in this story of this world-threatening event but this story completely erases Steve's involvement in the previous Kill Oscar trilogy. In fact at this point of the series is when the Steve Austin character no longer existed. Carl Franklin in part 1 mentions that the three people responsible for the destruction of his father was Jaime, Oscar and Rudy with no mention of Steve Austin. Later on in part 2 after stealing the directed energy ray weapon, Carl's first list of demands were personal in reference to the immediate surrender of Jaime, Oscar and Rudy but no mention of Steve. If anything Steve Austin was a bigger thorn in the senior Doctor Franklin;s side than Rudy ever was and one would think that this vengeful son would demand the immediate surrender of Steve more so than Rudy.
Season 2's, Doomsday is Tomorrow which also had a world-threatening event, simply explained away Steve's absence through dialogue stating that he was aboard NASA's Skylab space station at the time leaving the fate of the world in Jamie's hands. An explanation of Steve's absence wasn't needed that badly in DDIT (at least when comparing it to the events in FILV which is suppose to be a story of personal vengence) but never the less, it was icing on the cake which was desperately needed in Fembots in Las Vegas.
A scene from the predecessor, "Kill Oscar" of Col. Steve Austin fighting the Callahan fembot while infiltrating Franklin's base.
The fact that The Six Million Dollar Man's 5th season's Dark side of the Moon parts 1 and 2 (where Steve Austin spent a week or so up on the moon) first aired about the same time as Fembots in Las Vegas did was a perfect opportunity to explain away Steve's absence through dialogue. Unfortunately the writers never took advantage of it.
Another blunder, was the Callahan fembot being put into storage in the OSI vault after the events in "Kill Oscar". I'm putting aside the fact that we've all seen the Callahan fembot struck down by lightning on Saint Emil Island and then washed away to sea when the damn busted. I'm also putting aside the fact that the remains of Callahan, along with Katy and fembot # 5 should be somewhere at the bottom of the Alantic Ocean corroding away from the salt water, However, I must ask who was the idiot that left the power module/light bulb intact on this miraculously recovered and restored Callahan fembot before putting it into storage? Was it Rudy?.
The miraculously restored Callahan fembot that was clearly seen destroyed on it's predecessor, "Kill Oscar"
It should be noted that in the original script dated June 7th, 1977, the fembot that was stored in the vault and then escapes was the fembot duplicate of Lynda Wilson, Rudy's assistant keeping with the established continuity of the previous Kill Oscar Trilogy. So in essence, Arthur Rowe did attempt to keep the continuity flowing. It's just unknown how and why the Lynda character and her fembot duplicate got rewritten and replaced by Callahan. Enquiring minds want to know.
Another downer, was that the fembots seem to have lost some of their creep factor. They just weren't as scary this time around. They barely lost their face and when they do they just didn't look as menacing probably because of budget cuts.
The internal facial mechanism and circuitry that gave the fembots that inhuman image of menace.is alot less detailed this time around. It's just eye balls and a sub wolfer mouth piece with little to no additional circuitry.
Perhaps the biggest contradiction to the previous established cannon was when Carl Franklin revealed his secret identity. Yes, it was a cool twist but yet again it opens up another can of worms that contradicts everything we've learned from the Kill Oscar trilogy.
Not to say this episode was complete pile of rubbish because there were some good things in Fembots in Las Vegas:
- Although Jaime's didn't seem to be fully recovered from the psychological trauma of her previous encounter with the fembots, there was a great scene in part 1 where Jaime actually stands toe to toe and fights the fembot duplicate of Tami Cross in contrast to her usual repel and escape tactics. Of course she does eventually repels and escape later durring the fight but it was still a refreshing change while it lasted.
- Also, out of all the episodes in the entire series, this episode looks to be Lyndsay's most physically demanding role and she plays it superbly, it's just too bad that it sometimes gets ruined by all the bad writing throughout this episode.
- Oscar Goldman gets to shine during this fembot crisis in contrast to Kill Oscar, where Goldman serves most of the trilogy as a helpless hostage. This time around Oscar gets his hands dirty and is involved with most of the action.
- Grown up child actor Michael Burns does a good job playing the vengeful Carl Franklin. Although he doesn't sound or talk like John Housman, his physical mannerism is convincing as the son of Doctor Franklin. Also this Franklin is more cold blooded than his father. If he no longer has any use for his captives, he'll just execute them. The only flaw about how is character is written (besides his secret identity) is the fact that he seems to be acting out on his father's behalf instead of his own.
The story would have played out alot better if Carl vegence stemmed from blaming the OSI for the death of his father. Instead the events proceeding this episode establishes that Doctor Franklin was coaching and planning this new fembot crisis during his son's visits to prison. This again throws everything from the final scene of Kill Oscar out the window. Although the defeated Doctor Franklin knew he was going to prison, viewers were under the impression that he was going to be changing his ways.
- Then there's millionaire tycoon, weapons designer, Rod Kyler who's one part Tony Stark and one part John Travolta's bubble boy character, played by character actor James Olson (not to be confused with Superman's pal). I always enjoyed him in villainous roles but it was also good to see him play this likeable character who teams up with Jaime to help defeats Carl Franklin's. He's no Steve Austin but still an interesting male character for Jaime to play off of. It's too bad the writers didn't give him more to do do in the final acts considering that Carl Franklin stole his weapon and also abducted his girl friend and replaced her with a fembot.
- Another fine addition was the new sound effects used for fembots that helps maintain what little creep factor they had left in them.
Still over all, this could have been another grand epic adventure if only it was planned and written better and didn't show so much contempt for it's predecessor. As a stand alone episode feature length, Fembots in Las Vegas succeeds on some levels. However, as a sequel, it fails on every level.
I rate this feature length episode:
One and a Half out of Five Smiling Baltars